Let's look at some more Breeders' Cup breeding stats that probably won't help us pick any winners. Last week, we looked at the most successful sires over the first 25 Breeders' Cups. Today, let's look at the sires of this year's 166 pre-entrants.
Two sires top the list with five pre-entrants each, but they couldn't be at more different points in their careers as stallions: the venerable Storm Cat, whose final crop are foals this year, and Kitten's Joy, whose first crop are 2-year-olds. Ken and Sarah Ramsey, who campaigned and stand Kitten's Joy. are the owners and breeders of all five of the 2-year-olds by him they pre-entered: Becky's Kitten, Dean's Kitten, Kera's Kitten, Lisa's Kitten and William's Kitten. The first three are in the Juvenile Turf, Lisa's in the Juvenile Turf Fillies and William's in the Juvenile.
Here are the 13 stallions who have three or more pre-entrants:
(Green=grass race.)
Another 21 sires have two starters apiece: Awesome Again, Birdstone, Black Minnaloushe, Cherokee Run, Chester House, City Zip, Doneraile Coutry, Dynaformer, Galileo, Invincible Spirit, Langfuhr, Malibu Moon, Maria's Mon, More Than Ready, Rock of Gibraltar, Stormin Fever, Successful Appeal, Tale of the Cat, Tapit, Tiznow and Unbridled's Song. Finally, there are 77 sires represented by one pre-entrant apiece. Here's the link to the complete list, sorted by sire. Knock yourself out:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlJeMLWyKUIodDVWS3pnWjgyckc3bElxa2hhem5PWXc&hl=en
Where were they bred?
That's 66.2 percent Kentucky-breds, with another 9.6 percent from Ireland, 7.8 percent from Great Britain and 6.6 percent from Florida. So just over 90 percent (150 of 166) of all the Breeders' Cup pre-entrants were bred in just two states and two foreign countries -- Kentucky, Florida, Great Britain and Ireland.
And I couldn't help noticing that the only three New York-breds -- the filly Canadian Ballet and the geldings Cannonball and Silver Timber -- are all pre-entered in the Turf Sprint.
